COMMUNITY COMMENTARY
by Sue Wagoner
As a young girl living in Spanish B Camp on the Puunene Sugar Planation life was simple , humble and fun . We could romp and play all day and no one bothered us . I never knew of a child being molested or of a policeman being required in the camps . If we were fortunate enough to meet a stranger , we would talk to them and ask , “ Where you Stay ?” The dusty roads and cane fields were our playgrounds and we investigated every nook and cranny from the school yard to the grave yard . When we were hungry we had a wide choice of mangos , guavas , papayas and bananas that grew on the sides of the roads or even those that hung over the hedges in people ’ s yards . Our greatest treat was finding a cane stalk that had fallen off a cane car . I have sweet memories of the sweet warm juices as I munched on the cane . I frequently visited my grandmother who lived in Camp A . When I arrived she would sit me down and wash my dusty bare feet with her special Hawaiian scrubbing stone . We would then have tea and
Unlocked Doors
grandmother would tell me all sorts of stories . My favorite story was about Queen Liliuokalani . When grandmother was a young girl , she was selected to be one of the flower girls in the Queen ’ s Parade in Lahaina . She described the beautiful garment the Queen wore that day . Years later I recreated that garment , with the help of Bishop Museum and I used that garment in my monarchy fashion shows . As a youngster I was keenly aware that the plantation provided our basic needs including , housing , electricity , water , refuse service , kerosene for our Franklin cooking stove , chopped wood for our hot baths and full medical care . I often wondered who that marvelous man was who did all this for his workers . I had heard my father rave about his generosity . It was a rare thing to see an automobile on our dusty road , however , one day my curiosity was satisfied when I spotted a long black shiny car coming towards me . In the back seat of this chauffeur driven car , sat Mr . Frank F . Baldwin , President and General Manager of the sugar plantation . He looked so regal as his chauffeur , Masaru Fukushima , slowly drove past me . My little dream world continued until one day in 1949 I heard rumblings that the sugar mill had become unionized . The first thing that happened was that the workers were charged $ 18 a month for rent . Then slowly all the other special benefits disappeared . The thing I missed most was we no longer had Christmas parties . Previously the plantation would provide each child with a brown paper bag containing a mainland orange and apple , mixed nuts and candies . In memory , we only had mainland fruit , apples and oranges , at Christmas time . There were no physical boundaries in my little world . I did have the invisible boundaries of respect , kindness and above all else honesty . I simply refused to hurt , steal or be unkind to another human being . Throughout these many camps , I didn ’ t know of one family who locked their doors . At the same time , they hung a key on the wall next to the front door . Today I know that this key symbolized ownership of the home and at the same time – trust in human beings .
WISE WORDS
“ If you can ’ t make them see the light , make them feel the heat .” -Ronald Reagan
Pono Press , June 2013 , Page 8